Seeing for the First Time
by sillysillypanda
Summary: Falling in love in phases. Kataraang. Very fluffy.


**Disclaimer: A:TLA is not mine**

The first time she saw him, he was a miracle. A boy, encased by the cold, cruel ice for a century, accompanied by an extinct flying bison, and both still alive and kicking. He was the stuff of myths, woven by the smoke of the community fire dancing up into the star-streaking sky, and Gran-Gran's hoarse voice, chanting to keep the fear of the fire and the cold of the arctic night at bay. She wasn't her brother, paranoid and unbelieving, she was young and wide-eyed and oh-so willing to have faith in the impossible. To believe in wish-granting stars and ghosts haunting empty igloos and boys with mystic tattoos and giant grins. But still. _He_ was impossible, and she was actually seeing him with. Her. Own. Two. Eyes. As such, he was awe-inspiring, wonderful, the Avatar. Impossible. A bedtime story, a last, desperate hope, a miracle, a myth.

One doesn't fall in love with myths.

The next time she saw him, the next ten, hundred, thousand times she saw him, he was just a twelve year old kid, forced into bearing the weight of the world on his thin, bony shoulders. He was the Avatar, sure, and it was his destiny to save the world, but he was still just a kid. He was fragile the way only heroes- heroes who have let down the world once before and are determined never to do so again, heroes who never asked to be heroes- can be, had powers no one else could dream of, but he was still just a kid. He was her best friend, even. Her brother couldn't count, because you can't really be best friends with your crazy elder brother, with someone whose socks you've washed, someone who makes it his life career to drive you insane.

_He_ was different. He was thoughtful and kind and sweet and… her best friend. She could joke with him, and talk with him about anything, everything, the way she couldn't talk to Sokka, or to the Avatar, or to anyone but Aang. She could tell him about her dreams, talk about her desire to learn bending, because he understood. At first, she thought it was because he was a bender himself, so he _had_ to understand the way the water called to her, because air, and all the elements, really, must call to him in the same way, but she soon realized that it was because he was Aang, her silly, sweet, Aang, that he understood her.

She was tired of being the only one in the whole South Pole (which might as well have been the entire world, before she met him, because it _was _her whole entire world until he entered it) who understood. So it was just natural that they be best friends, right? Birds of a feather, and all that.

She smiled at his antics, rolled her eyes at his silliness, wrapped her arms around him when he was shaking with fear and frustration and needed someone, glared at him when he was out of line. She took care of him, the way she had been taking care of everyone, ever since her father had sailed away and her mother had died. He needed a lot of taking care of, she decided, because he was still just a kid, a kid with far too many responsibilities. A kid who surfed on four-winged penguins and rode giant fishes and showed off with gliders and flying marbles and let attention swell his head. He tried to grow up too fast, had to grow up too fast, for the sake of the world, but she still saw him as a little kid, just like the kids she had babysat for years. Sweet, the way toddlers and fluffy animals are.

She loved him, don't get her wrong, but he was practically a brother to her. She says practically, because he was as different from Sokka as possible, and, as such, her relationship with him had to be entirely different from the brother-sister relationship she was comfortable with. No screaming, no fighting, no "remember-when's," no leaning on each other, arms wrapped around each other for security and warmth and comfort when everyone else was gone and the world was cold and cruel.

But still. He was a friend, that was all.

Falling in love with your best friend is so awkward, and _so _cliché.

Katara was anything but. She was fierce and a fighter. She was motherly and fragile. She was curious about the world around her, the world that looked so different on Appa's back as from the ice floes of the South Pole. She was _complicated, _darn it, too complicated to ever completely understand or portray, and she was _not_ about to start being cliché now.

Or so she would have told herself, if she had opened her eyes to see what was right beneath her nose.

Naturally, she didn't bother to look.

The next time she saw him, scratch that, the first time she _saw _him, it was only because of Sokka. She nearly died of embarrassment, that her stupid idiot of an elder brother had been the one to first see what was underneath her eyes the entire time. Granted, Sokka had had no clue of what he was seeing at the time (and for a long, long time afterwards) but still. He still saw it first.

They were fighting the volcano, and it was an impossible idea, fighting nature itself, like wrestling with the ocean or duelling the lightning of the sky, but they were doing it anyway, and _Aang was winning. _She was awestruck, watching the power of the Avatar.

But Aang wasn't in the Avatar State, she realized with a shock, he was doing this by himself, without the crazy supernatural powers from the spirit world. This was Aang, not the creepy, glowing, sightless monstrosity he became when he was channelling the Avatar. This was just Aang, her best friend, the most powerful bender in a century.

Her brother's words echoed with Auntie Wu's predictions, "The man you will marry will be a powerful bender..."

She saw, in that moment, her life and Aang's, tied together by the lines of their palms. Auntie Wu had told her her entire life's path, and it had been a good one, a strong one, one she would want to share with a man she loved.

One she was about to share with the man she loved.

Aang.

Oh, sweet heavens.

They would grow old together, she smiled in relief, and have children and grandchildren and die peacefully, after a life filled with love and laughter. Auntie Wu had been talking about Aang the whole time she, Katara, had pestered her with questions. That meant that they would have to win this war, would defeat the Fire Lord, because Aang was the type of person who wouldn't give up until he had won this war, and the war would have to be over for the two of them to grow old in peace. It wouldn't be easy, but it would _be._

She never thought to question Auntie Wu's predictions. Like the man in the woods, attacked by a platypus bear, Katara was completely serene. She wasn't her brother, paranoid and unbelieving, she was still young and wide-eyed and oh-so willing to have faith.

All would be well.

She didn't fall in love with the Avatar, with a myth, or with a kid who was just her best friend.

She fell in love with a powerful bender, and a boy who would grow to be the kindest, sweetest man in a century, a man who would be tall and handsome (as she had hoped for) and gentle and funny, who would be an amazing father of four children (a girl, then a boy, then the identical twins) and a loving husband and grandfather.

Aang.

She was sure of it.

She kept seeing him, and she was afraid, embarrassed, to tell him what she knew, what the rest of their lives would be like, how happy they would be together. It could wait, she decided, until he made the first move. He was bound enough by fate and destiny, more like shackled by it. The universe had given him few enough choices, what with being the Avatar destined to save the world. She could at least let him decide when he would approach her, confess if he wanted to. She wasn't going to burden him with anymore destiny.

Only he didn't make the first move, not in a way that couldn't just be her over-reactive heart misinterpreting an innocent, friendly gesture. And, being the fiery waterbender and headstrong girl that she was, she grew impatient.

She began doubting herself and her sight. What if she was misinterpreting Auntie Wu's predictions? She could have been talking about Haru, the talented brave Earthbender, or one of the waterbenders of the Northern Tribe who she consistently creamed (probably not them). She could have been talking about _Prince Zuko _for crying out loud!

Auntie Wu had never said that Katara would marry the _most _powerful bender, just a powerful one. And Aang was still a little kid, with too much to worry about to think about wooing a crazy, impatient, short-tempered peasant from the south, especially when he _should _have been worrying about playing pranks and air buffalo polo but instead was worrying about mastering the four elements and saving the world.

She could wait. She could wait. She could…

Who was she kidding? It wasn't in her nature to wait; water flows and gushes and streams, always to a set destination. It doesn't stand still; it _goes._

But it figures that the first time she saw him (it seemed like every time was the first time, now) without her eyes, it was in the dark, literally and metaphorically. The torch was spluttering out, and she was angry (angry at his lack of tact- did the universe not owe her at least a relatively romantic man?) and scared (scared that they would be trapped in the underground labyrinth forever, alone, lost, never to see the clouds or the ocean or each other or anything else, ever again) and she needed comfort. She needed a way out, just one little hint of light.

She still believed Aang could do anything. She had never doubted that.

But she started to doubt Auntie Wu's prediction. Maybe she had read it wrong. Maybe Katara was fated to die here, in the cold, dry earth, away from the sea. Alone, unloved.

And when the torch spluttered out and they saw each other, right before the luminous crystals kicked in, well, she was glad that Sokka wasn't there right then. To say the least.

Aang could still do anything. Defeat the Fire Lord, save the world, get them out of this tunnel, turn her stomach into a jungle of butterflies and set her cool lips aflame…

So she saw, as they stepped out into the sunlight, he did love her. But he still had priorities. She didn't tell him that he would survive, didn't tell him that they would marry, didn't tell him that everything would turn out okay. Well, never mind, she did tell him that everything would be okay, but she told him that as a friend, who wants to comfort someone she loves. She knew, now, that another dose of destiny wouldn't have comforted Aang at all.

He believed in seizing destiny in his own two hands. He didn't want to do anything because fate told him he had to, but because he wanted to. Because he had the power to shape clouds and to shape fate, just as he could bend air and water and earth and flame.

He wanted to save the world. He wanted to end this terrible war. He wanted it. He would accomplish it because he wanted to, not because destiny told him to.

If he was going to love her, she wanted it to be because he wanted to, not because some far off, intangible thing that ordered him to.

Maybe she could wait, after all.

A happily-ever-after, the stuff of myths and legends, was worth a little patience from a girl who never stopped being willing to believe.


End file.
